Countdown until Zer0 leaves Office: 362 days as of January 24, 2012.
Posted on 01/24/2012 7:31:18 AM PST by Kaslin
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have already cost US taxpayers over $200 billion. If Obama gets his way on mortgage writedowns, the GSEs estimate it would take another $100 billion.
Since such estimates are always overly-optimistic by a factor of 3 to 10, I estimate the cost to taxpayers would be $300 billion minimum.
Please consider Fannie, Freddie writedowns too costly: regulator
Calculating the Maximum CostThe regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac told lawmakers that forcing the two mortgage firms to write down loan principal would require more than $100 billion in fresh taxpayer funds.
In a letter sent on Friday to the Republican and Democratic leaders of a House of Representatives government oversight panel, the Federal Housing Finance Agency explained why it has long opposed principal reductions for borrowers who owe more than their homes are worth.
It said it had determined that such reductions would be more costly for the two firms than allowing those troubled borrowers to default.
"Principal reduction never serves the long-term interest of the taxpayer when compared to foreclosure," FHFA's acting director, Edward DeMarco, wrote in the letter to lawmakers dated January 20.
About 22 percent of U.S. homes have negative equity totaling about $750 billion, according to CoreLogic.
"Given that any money spent on this endeavor would ultimately come from taxpayers and given that our analysis does not indicate a preservation of assets for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac substantial enough to offset costs, an expenditure of this nature at this time would, in my judgment, require congressional action," DeMarco said in the letter.
Another barrier to principal writedowns, aside from pushing losses at the two firms even further, DeMarco said, was the costs associated with new technology and training to servicers that would be needed to launch a program that offers principal forgiveness.
The Federal Reserve, in a white paper to Congress earlier this month, said write-downs "had the potential to decrease the probability of default" and "improve migration between labor markets."
However, the Fed stopped short of endorsing such an initiative and noted concern that writing down loan balances would create a moral hazard -- the concept that rescue efforts breed further behavior that exacerbates the existing problem -- and could prompt other borrowers to stop making timely loan payments.
I can almost see the ads against Romney now..
You know that company that gave you the no money down mortage at that great teaser rate? Romney owned it.
You know that company that laid you off? Romney owned it.
And, you know that company that foreclosed on your home? well... Romney owned that too.
This is a major example of what’s wrong with government getting involved. Hundreds of billions poured down the rat hole and they want more.
If this were private business, they would have shut down 4-5 years years ago.
The list, Ping
Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list
Hey Obamabutt,
Get the money from your butt buddy, Soros.
Leave us alone, go away, and suck eggs.
FANNIE/FREDDIE——DEMOCRATS’ CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE / By Michelle Malkin
Fannie/Freddie are centerpieces of the criminal enterprise called the Democrat Party-—where Dem cronies and collaborators loot the organization, get cushy jobs, bonuses, and the like.
Fannie Mae’s political machine dispensed campaign contributions, gave jobs to friends and relatives of legislators, hired armies of lobbyists (even paying lobbyists not to lobby against it), paid academics who wrote papers validating the home ownership mania, and spread “charitable” contributions to housing advocates across the congressional map.
Fannie Mae serves as an industrial-sized patronage factory — sharing profits with political allies, spreading taxpayer funds to voting blocs——like ethnic groups-——and doling out jobs to left-wing academics, Washington has-beens and back-scratching buddies.
Obama insider Fannie Mae exec Jim Johnson got sweetheart loans from shady subprime Countrywide. Pols raked in six-figure salaries as F/F engaged in Enron-sstyle accounting, plunged into debt and helped usher in the subprime housing meltdown through cockamamie lending practices.
Bill Clinton appointed Franklin Raines, Daley and Rahm Emanuel just as the quasi-governmental F/M engaged in rampant book-cooking so that F/M insider could help themselves to massive bonuses.
The Chi/Tribune exposed how Emanuel’s “profitable stint” was low-show w/ no work involved. Emanuel was not even assigned to committees, according to company proxy statements.
Immediately upon joining the board, Emanuel and other insiders qualified for $380,000 in stock and options plus a $20,000 annual fee, public records indicate. W/ Wall Street Emanuel there, accounting tricks were used to mislead shareholders about outsize profits F/M reaped from risky investments.
The goal was to cook the books to keep fraudulent earnings on the books, to make Freddie Mac look profitable on paper-——AND to fraudulently obtain humongous annual bonuses for political insiders.
Not just "no", but &%#_*^@! NO!!!!!!
NO. NO. and NO!
Yes, by all means, bail them out. I want MY 15K back that I lost investing in Franklin Raines’ openly racist money carnival.
Give me MY money back. I only care about myself, and to hell with what is good for the country.
....Now exiting self-absorbed, gimme-gimme, Union Democrat mode.......
Freddie and Fannie, the two big quasi-govt mortgage banks that HAVE ALREADY RECEIVED HUGE federal bailouts, had huge lobbying budgets that they used for political contributions to keep regulators off their backs. So which politicians get Fannie and Freddie political contributions.
The top three U.S. Senators getting big Fannie and Freddie political bucks were Democrats and number two was then-Senator Barack Obama who had only been in the Senate little over 2 years, but still managed to grab the number two spot ahead of John Kerry, decades in the senate, and Chris Dodd then-chairman of the powerful Senate Banking Committee.
Fannie and Freddie were creations of the Congressional Democrats and the Clinton White House, designed to make mortgages available to more people, and as it turned out, some many many who couldn’t afford them. Fannie and Freddie have also been places for big Washington democrats to go to work in the semi-private sector and pocket millions.
The Clinton Administration’s White House budget director -—Franklin Raines-— was appointed by Clinton to run Fannie........ and collected $50 million dollars. Jamie Gurilli Gorelick (now BP’s attorney), a Clinton Justice Apartment Official, worked for Fannie and took home $26 million dollars in mfg bonuses.
Big Democrat Jim Johnson, recently on Obama’s VP search committee hauled in millions from his Fannie Mae CEO job. Now remember, Obama’s ads and stump speeches attacked McCain and Republican policies for the financial turmoil.
It is demonstrably not Republican policy and worse, it appears the man attacking McCain, Senator Obama, was at the head of the line when the piggy’s lined up at the Fannie and Freddie trough for campaign bucks....” - FoxNews, Sept. 2008
The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight’s report reported that Fannie Mae employees deliberately and intentionally manipulated financial reports to hit earnings targets in order to trigger bonuses for senior executives.
Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae’s former chief executive officer, OFHEO’s report shows that over half of Mr. Raines’ compensation for the 6 years through 2003 was directly tied to meeting earnings targets (by cooking the books).
Ex-Fannie CEO Franklin Raines (Clinton appointee) is a parasitic crook of the first order. This thief cooked the FM books precipitating losses of $9BILLION (that we know of) for the single purpose of creating $50 million fraudulent bonuses for himself (and millions for other F/M insiders).
The SEC said Raines broke accounting rules by playing with risky derivatives. The US Government filed suit against Franklin Raines when the depth of the F/M accounting scandal became clear.
READ IT HERE http://housingdoom.com/2006/12/18/fannie-charges/
The Government noted, “The 101 charges reveal how the individuals improperly manipulated earnings to maximize their bonuses, while knowingly neglecting accounting systems and internal controls, misapplying over twenty accounting principles and misleading the regulator and the public.....explains how they submitted six years of misleading and inaccurate accounting statements and inaccurate capital reports that enabled them to grow Fannie Mae in an unsafe and unsound manner.”
These charges were made in 2006. The Court ordered Raines to return $50 Million Dollars he received in bonuses based on the misstated Fannie Mae profits. (Soon going to trial?)
On top of the $50M he looted from the govt (for cooking the books for which he was fired), Raines also walked away with a tax-paid exit package worth $90 million.
Get the gov’t out of the mortgage business. Kill FM/FM.
Americans, all!!! Boycott the Obama SOTU address this evening by the millions!!! Make the least viewed SOTU speech in the history of the USA!!!
No problem here. I can't stand to listen to the bastard.
Anyone have a link to a certain video going around in email?
A man is talking to his loan officer about raising his debt ceiling. He owes 161k, makes 21k, and spends 38k per year.
They made “hard cuts” in their budget totaling $385.
The video ends with the man’s baby daughter crayoning her commitment on a loan form.
OK, time for another Tea Party in DC!
Just another tricky way to redistribute wealth.
well count me on on this banning of the speech.
Let the headlines show that it was the least viewed speech in modern history.
Hey Obama, as regards Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and throwing more billions down those rat holes...GTH!
Close them down.
You and the dems have willfully used those government sponsored entities to cause the housing crash in the name of giving housing loans to those who could abjectly not afford it so you could line the pockets of your cronies in the process and take more control.
That’s done...and going out the window after 2012.
Obama and the Dems caused the financial crisis
http://www.jeffhead.com//obama/communityorgan.htm
Newt needs to step up and talk about “codewords”. It would especially be good if someone asked him a question about “foodstamp president” being racist code language.
“Now, let’s talk about the ‘code language’ of the left. You say ‘fairness’, we say ‘socialism’. You say ‘spread the wealth’, we also recognize that as ‘socialism’. You say ‘wealth redistribution’, we call that ‘socialism’ as well. If you’re going to espouse socialist ideology, OWN UP TO IT.”
Countdown until Zer0 leaves Office: 362 days as of January 24, 2012.
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